Then she looked up and out, at the infinite stars.
She had imagined space as a simple black. But it was paler, and richer, and so much more complex, infused with extraordinary maroons, reefs of light blue, glints of yellow on vast clouds of the deepest green.
They stood there together, Rose and the Doctor, in an intimate silence. Then she looked at the north-east curve of the horizon below, some plains of Russia. Focusing on particular dips of landscape. She waited, and then, as she knew she would, she saw them change under the planet’s slow revolve.
‘I can feel it,’ she said. ‘The turn of the Earth.’
He smiled.
They stayed there for a while. Then she stepped back and the Doctor closed the door.
It was time to go home.
20
The Journey Begins
Rose held her breath, excited.
The interior of the TARDIS had settled with a big, resounding thump, the glass column hissing to a halt and the groan of engines falling away. The end of the line. The Doctor had promised to bring her back to No.143 Enoch Tower, and she relished the mad clash of it, her plain old living room now waiting beyond the wooden doors, the blue box perhaps jammed in between the TV and the big red chair. Her worlds colliding. She wished Jackie could be home, to gawp. This might finally shut her up!
With a grin, Rose opened the door.
Onto the cold and dark.
She stepped out, into the London night.
‘We’re in the wrong place!’
Henrik’s. Where it all began. They were just beyond the ruin of the shop. The TARDIS had brought them to a mountain of blackened rubble sealed off by hazard tape and chain-link fencing. In the distance, Rose could hear a thousand sirens, but the Henrik’s alarms had burnt themselves out the night before so she stood in comparative peace.
The night before. Just 24 hours ago. One day in which everything had changed. A day now coming to an end. Rose knew that the stranger’s promise, given to her in the dark and snow of New Year’s Eve, had finally come true. But she also knew it couldn’t last forever.
The Doctor leaned against the TARDIS doorway, arms folded, defiant.
‘You said home,’ said Rose. ‘You got it wrong.’
‘Funny,’ he said. ‘The times I’ve heard that. I’d forgotten all this.’
He was pushed aside as Mickey ran out, came to a halt, looked around, then looked back at the TARDIS, then at Rose, then down at the ground, then up at the sky, then down again. He stamped on the street to prove it was real. He’d convinced himself that seeing the Earth from orbit had been some sort of back-projection, but now he had to face the truth. That they’d moved.
Mickey said, ‘Were we thrown?’
‘What d’you mean, thrown?’ said Rose.
‘Like. We were underground. And it exploded. And we got thrown out. And we landed here.’
Rose took a deep breath, to explain, but the Doctor said, ‘Actually, that’s not bad. Same difference. Well done, Ricky.’
‘It’s Mickey,’ said Mickey, and he slumped down to sit on a pile of bricks, exhausted. Rose went to him, put her hand on the back of his neck and said to the Doctor, ‘Is he all right?’
‘Don’t talk like I’m not here,’ said Mickey.
The Doctor ignored him. ‘He was copied,’ he said to Rose. ‘Bit knackering. Ten minutes, fresh air, right as rain. So. Are we done?’
Rose felt a sudden rush in her heart. This was it. The Doctor was going. He’d step into that box and slam the door, never to be seen again. But she wouldn’t give herself away. She said, as though indifferent, ‘I suppose.’
‘Good,’ said the Doctor.
‘Yeah,’ said Rose.
And they both stayed where they were.
Then the Doctor said, ‘Right. I’d better go.’
‘Well, good luck,’ said Rose. ‘You’ll need it.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘You’d be dead if it wasn’t for me,’ she said, with a smile.
‘D’you think?’ He was smiling too, just a little.
‘Yeah, you were rubbish. Thank God I was there.’
‘I suppose I should say thanks.’
‘Go on then.’
‘Thank you,’ said the Doctor.
‘Okay.’
‘Well then.’
And still, they both hesitated. The Doctor’s weight shifted onto his back foot, his hand tensed on the wooden door, about to close it—but not yet.
The moment suspended.
Rose thought that it should feel so new, talking to an alien, and yet she’d had this conversation a hundred times before. With boys. Outside bars, pubs, discos. The game, the rules, the dance of it, the push and pull, the give and take, the yes and the no. But this time with a man from outer space.
And yet he surprised her with what he said next.
‘D’you want to come with me?’
Everything fell away: the sirens, the city, the cold. Rose could only hear the thump of her heart. And she imagined going through that door, standing with him at the centre of that amazing machine. Travelling outwards, upwards, onwards.
The Doctor’s smile was sly. He made it sound so casual, rubbing his thumb along the jamb of the doorway, idly fascinated by the grain. ‘This box isn’t just a London hopper. It goes anywhere. The whole universe. Free of charge.’ Then he blinked, drew in a sharp breath, looked at Rose as though preparing to forget her. ‘Anyway. Never mind. Just a thought.’
He took one step back.
Rose said, ‘No,’ to stop him, but then couldn’t think of what to say next.
Mickey looked up at her and said, ‘You can’t. It’s not safe. He’s an alien. He’s a thing.’
‘He’s not invited,’ said the Doctor.
They’re fighting over me, she thought.
She had no problem with that.
The Doctor said, ‘Choice is yours, Rose Tyler. You could always stay here. Fill your life with work and food and sleep. Or you could go … anywhere.’
‘Is it always this dangerous?’
‘Yes.’
She felt a chill, a memory of the terrors she’d faced. And yet she wanted that feeling again.
But then, ping, ping, ping. Her phone, strafed by texts as the network came back to life; 34 messages received, 35, 36, 37. The list of names: Sally, Shareen, Mook, Patrice, Omar, Maxwell, Suki, Janice, Keisha, Cole, Mum, Mum, Mum. Her old world, flooding back. She wondered if any of those texts would be someone’s final message. And then Jackie, of course, she thought of Jackie, wandering home. And Mickey, poor Mickey Smith, that lovely bright boy shattered by events. Needing her help. And tomorrow the sun would shine and life would go on and she needed a job, she needed a wage, she couldn’t go running off like she’d done with Jimmy Stone, she wasn’t a kid any more. She had to buckle down and behave and face her responsibilities.
‘I can’t,’ she said to the Doctor. ‘I’ve got to stay.’
The Doctor’s expression did not change. He kept a level stare, as though none of this mattered at all. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘See you around.’
And he stepped back and slammed the wooden door shut.
She could imagine him, contained within that box, crossing that distance, boots on metal, reaching the centre, throwing that switch. And yes, she’d timed it perfectly, as she heard those wheezing engines lurch into life. Mickey stood up to stare alongside her and they saw the miracle of the box for the first time. The lamp on top of the stacked roof flared as bright as the sun. Then it pulsed up and down, seeming to draw all the colour out of the box as the noise heaved into a bellow, a fierce little wind whipping up, a vortex of papers and flakes and ash spiralling around the shape of the box even as that shape began to disappear. The lines and light melted away into the night. The wind died down, the debris settled to the floor, and the noise faded down to a whisper, and then nothing at all.
The Doctor had gone.
‘Come on,’ said Mickey. ‘Le
t’s go.’
Rose looked at the empty space and then said, ‘Yeah.’
She turned away. And saw herself. A tall, broken shard of mirror leaned against an alleyway, part of a Henrik’s display thrown across the street. And there she stood. Nineteen years old, London born, average height. Hoodie and jeans, like everyone her age. A scoop of dirty blonde hair around her face. Eyes like her father’s, mascara like her mum’s. A bit of a sullen expression which made everyone, her whole life, say ‘Cheer up.’
The most ordinary girl in the world.
And I’m happy with that, she thought. This ordinary girl helped to save the world, not with magic, not with science, not with any particular skill, I just did one simple thing: I never gave up.
And then she heard it again.
The grind of engines.
The light blazed into existence, then colour, a rush of blue, a spiral of wind, then the outlines of the box, bleeding into the air, and then with a thump, the TARDIS was back.
The Doctor opened the door.
Big smile.
He said, ‘Did I mention? It also travels in time.’
Oh! The spin of the world beneath her feet seemed to tilt. Now so many things made sense.
The photographs in the shed. The cut on his cheek. And those two words, spoken by a furious beast: time and lord.
Rose turned to Mickey.
She loved him, but that seemed a very small thing, right now. She thought of the people who’d abandoned him, the people he’d lost over the years. And she was sorry, but above and beyond that, she thought: That’s his story. But this is my story, now. And the only person who can tell it, is me.
She gave Mickey a kiss.
She said, ‘Thank you.’
Then she ran towards the rest of her life.
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BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
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BBC Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
Novelisation copyright © Russell T Davies 2018
Original script copyright © Russell T Davies 2005
Russell T Davies has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Doctor Who is a BBC Wales production for BBC One.
Executive producers: Steven Moffat and Brian Minchin
First published by BBC Books in 2018
www.penguin.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9781785943263
Editorial Director: Albert DePetrillo
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Cover design: Two Associates
Cover illustration: Anthony Dry
Production: Phil Spencer
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